The author interprets modern visual art as a coherent, comprehensible, and largely self-contained process. To explain its development, he refers to both cultural and social historical backgrounds as well as models of the structure and dynamics of the creative process. To organize the history of development he aims to present, Bocola categorizes the multitude of works and movements according to four fundamental artistic attitudes. This allows him to meaningfully distinguish them in their differentiations and relate them to one another. The clearly structured overall presentation is characterized by its multidisciplinary approach and the breadth of perspective, which also includes the most important philosophical, societal, and scientific currents of the 19th and 20th centuries. The long-overdue new edition of the work spans several volumes.